Butterfly Hike

My cousin and I were at TM for about 3 hrs early this afternoon, and had a wonderful, though tiring, hike with great weather. I chose my camera over Ed, poor boy. We took the craggy way to the top, spending lots of time in all the meadowy areas. 


Little asters are about the only flower blooming, and they were all over the place and teeming with butterflies. We saw lots of gray hairstreaks, skippers, pearl crescents, and a few tiny blues.

 I thought I saw an ant, but its butt says assassin bug, so I don't know

 On the trailhead we found this harvestman feasting on a dead grasshopper

 Some kind of bee on the little white asters

 Two gray hairstreaks

 Hairstreak bouquet, with a pennsylvania leatherwing in the middle!

 Katydid on asters

Dragonfly skimmer on wheat-looking grass

 Wasp on aster

 Skipper on asters; I tried to ID it but there are just too many

 Colorful poison oak

 While my cousin was on the phone conducting AZ business, I looked around and this exclamation point in the tree was the most interesting thing I found

 While returning on the ridge trail we noticed a dark area of the sky; forecast said chance of rain, and it finally did barely sprinkle as we were nearing the end

 Question mark

Monarch